SAO PAULO.- The Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo announces the list of artists for the 39th Panorama of Brazilian Art: After All Has Been Said, an emblematic biennial project in the museum’s history and a landmark in the history of Brazilian art, which in this edition features Diane Lima as its curator. Taking place between September 12, 2026, and January 24, 2027, the new edition of the exhibition marks the return of MAM to its headquarters in Ibirapuera Park, after a period of closure due to renovations of the Marquise.
The list features 33 artists from 13 Brazilian states, representing all regions of the country, and is composed of Allan Weber, Amorí, Ana Claudia Almeida, André Felipe Cardoso, Anti Ribeiro, Arorá, Bárbara Banida, biarittzzz, Carolina Cordeiro, Caroline Ricca Lee, Chacha Barja, Darks Miranda, Emer Freire, Fykyá Pankararu, Gilson Plano, Helô Sanvoy, Iagor Peres, Josi, Jota Mombaça, Kuenan Mayu, Lia D Castro, Lita Cerqueira, Marcelo Conceição, Moacir Soares de Faria, Nazas, Osvaldo Gaia, Oto Ferreira, Rafael Chavez, Rayana Rayo, Rodrigo Cass, Rose Afefé, Thaís Muniz and Ygor Landarin.
According to Diane Lima, the Panorama constitutes the most important and historic research platform on contemporary Brazilian art. For this edition, her investigation focuses especially on examining the effects, in the present, of what the curator calls an “epistemological turnaround,” a movement that has taken place in the last two decades and has definitively impacted the national artistic production—a period marked by the advancement of affirmative action policies and by significant social and racial transformations in Brazilian society.
“When conceiving the project and the list of artists for the 39th Panorama, I questioned the meaning of holding an exhibition that has more than 57 years of history. Given that it is about Brazil, it was also inevitable to question a certain regulated artistic and compositional space that imprisons and reduces our forms of expression to a categorical and commodified imaginary – a predetermined space that makes us believe that artistic practices must be compulsorily transparent to our social identities, an impasse that fatally places us outside the possibility of exercising a radically creative dimension. What we will see in the exhibition, therefore, is that what unites us in this national panorama is a constant attempt at liberation, and it was in search of this impulse for liberation that I developed my research and defined and organized the list of artists,” explains the curator.
The selection of artists for the 39th Panorama proposes a dialogue between different generations, regions, languages, methods, and materialities. These practices challenge established categories, expand systems of interpretation, and call for new ways of perceiving contemporary Brazilian art. In this context, the curatorial methodological process is based on a critical reflection on artistic practices and their modes of poetic and compositional operation, identifying exercises of imagination and experimentation that the curatorial team calls “oceanic, porous, and monstrous forms.”
According to the chief curator of MAM São Paulo, Cauê Alves, “since its creation in 1969, the Panorama of Brazilian Art has been a relevant platform both for the formation of the museum’s collection and for the exercise of its mission to encourage art from a contemporary outlook. This edition reaffirms MAM’s identity as a space of excellence in research and experimentation. Curated by Diane Lima, the exhibition brings together artists of diverse origins and multiple perspectives, fundamental premises for discussing current issues and for envisioning the future.”
After All Has Been Said
The title of the 39th Panorama is inspired by a philosophical question posed by Denise Ferreira da Silva—a philosopher, theorist, artist, and one of the leading contemporary Black feminist authors—in which she invites us to imagine “whether it would be possible to draw upon a sensibility that presumes and anticipates what lies beyond all that has been said and done about colonial and racial violence, and the work they perform for global capital.”
In the philosophical question posed in essays and lectures entitled After All Has Been Said, Ferreira da Silva interprets art as confrontation, questioning “what becomes possible or impossible when the work of art refuses anything that can be immediately said about it.”
Departing from this provocation and the dialogue with the philosopher, Diane Lima seeks to reflect on how certain contemporary artistic practices have performed, in their poetic and compositional procedures, radical exercises of imagination and experimentation: “The works selected for the 39th Panorama, in general, question ‘each mode, each form of presentation,’ transforming it into a confrontation—which is presentation as a refusal of representation.
From this arises the interpretation that Denise Ferreira da Silva proposes: to read ‘art as confrontation,’ which occurs when the work destabilizes the spectators, their beliefs, as well as the limits of categories, refusing anything that can be immediately said about it. This is a constant exercise and invitation that the exhibition makes. The objective is to highlight a continuous and collective movement of liberation: practices that have destabilized mental geographies, are animated by matter, refuse rigid classifications, oxygenate criticism, break with the theme-figure norm, and summon other sensibilities to think about contemporary Brazilian art.”
Panorama of Brazilian Art
The Panorama of Brazilian Art is a biennial exhibition held by the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo since 1969. Established as one of the most important shows on the national art calendar, the exhibition presents, in each edition, curatorial selections that discuss urgent contemporary debates and highlight the diversity of artistic productions in the country, strengthening the dialogue between artists, institutions and audiences.
Its creation in 1969 coincided with the resumption of the museum’s activities after a period of closure. The exhibition arose from the joint effort of Diná Lopes Coelho—technical director of the museum between 1968 and 1982—and artists, curators, critics, and other cultural agents who mobilized to rebuild the museum and reactivate its programming. MAM found in Panorama an essential strategy to reconstruct its collection, incorporating works presented in each edition.
Throughout its 38 editions, the Panorama of Brazilian Art has played a fundamental role in shaping the contemporary identity of the MAM and in strengthening the Brazilian artistic field. Its historical relevance and its continuous vocation for reflection, experimentation, and renewal maintain the Panorama as a central platform for understanding art produced in Brazil today.
